By D.A. Dellechiaie
BU News Service
I listen to at least four podcasts a day at 1.5 speed. I don’t do this because I need to consume it faster but rather because I grew up around the fast talkers of New York. I find slow, meandering conversation painful to listen to.
I listen to these podcasts because I can’t read and walk at the same time. I once tried reading “A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man” and skateboarding at the same time and ended up face planting into a small garden.
Podcasts are also a good way to kill some time on the commute home for Thanksgiving. This year’s holiday will be full of young people like me saying, “I told you so” to our older, grumpy, former Trump sympathizing family members.
But after about 20 minutes, the Trump debate will get old, so whatever you learned on your way home will fill this void. Instead of pointing out how the president speaks like third-grader who has been caught doing something bad but still thinks he can get out of it, you can talk about what you learned from these podcasts. You can also tell your family members who are influential in the world of journalism about this wonderful journalist named Daniel Anthony Dellechiaie. Please?
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Pod Save America
This podcast was created by Jon Favreau, Dan Pfeiffer, Jon Lovett and Tommy Vietor after the 2016 election. All the hosts are hysterical. Some could object that politics should be a no go. I think politics and humor are a great mix.
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Presidential
If you know anything about podcasts, you are probably thinking, “Wait, this podcast isn’t new!” Yes, this podcast is from last year but it’s content is eternal. Presidential tells the story of every president. It’s good because history is comforting. History reminds us that some things aren’t unprecedented and that we are actually living in the relatively best period in human history.
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Who Shot Ya?
If you subscribe to a lot of the mainstream podcasts such as NPR’s Fresh Air, you may get frustrated—like I do—at the reviewers. I leave most of those mainstream reviews wondering whether the critic spent more time watching the movie or consulting his thesaurus. The crew at Who Shot Ya? reminds us that movies are fun to talk and learn about. You don’t need a degree in English and Film Studies to be able to understand the lovely hosts Ricky Carmona, Alonso Duralde and April Wolfe.
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The Paris Review
For those literary nerds and occasional Tumblr intellectuals, you know The Paris Review. The Paris Review is perhaps the most prestigious literary review still in existence. Their interviews are legendary. If you have read a biography of a famous writer, you almost certainly read at least an excerpt from a Paris Review Interview. The podcast is full of fiction, poetry recitations and interviews with famous writers.
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WTF with Marc Maron
I have to apologize ahead of time for this one. It is not technically new, but Maron by far has the most interesting interview style. He uses his admitted ignorance and latches on to the things that he and his guests have in common, which is usually music, movies and places. Every interview is a conversation. A listener of Maron’s podcast feels like he is in the room, listening and laughing along. Maron is also a BU alumnus.
While I am not a huge fan of Thanksgiving (mainly because of the food), I do think that the holiday celebrates something beautiful: coming together. No matter how many of your aunt’s election Facebook posts you may have cringed at, you can still laugh together during Thanksgiving about how all the older guys look like the toys in “Toy Story” when Andy’s coming post dinner. Have fun this Thanksgiving, and remember cranberry sauce is the best side dish and croissants are just fancy bread.
